NiF- 




stationery am) Paper Hangings 



MEHHILL & MACKHTTIUE 

( Nearly opposite Firs; Cluircii, ) 

NO. 220 ESSEX STREET, - - SALEM, 

offer for your inspection the largest and most complete 
assortment of new patterns of 

mm IgffiBEss, 5^orijek[ 

AND DECORATIONS EVER BEFORK 
SHOWN IN THE CITY. 



Staple and Fancy Stationery 

SCHOOL BOOKS, SCHOOL SUPPLIES. 

Blank Books of Every Description 

AT PRICES WHICH DEFY COMPETITION. 



We are, at all times, having Special liavgains in our several 
departments, which will well repay a visit to onr store. 
Bookhindino- done to order. 

MEHHILL 8u MACKIHTIHE 

( Nearly opposite Fir=r riinrcli, ) 

No. 220 Sssex Street, Salem 



BOOKS, STATIONERY and PAPER HANGINGS 

(Nearly opposite First Church,) 

230*EgSEX;l«TI(EET, * * ZftLEEQ, 



We have in stock at all times full lines of goods in our line, 

and olTer tlieui to the citizens of P^ssex Count}- 

at very low prices. 

l^nniK^S^ Juvenile Books of all kinds, Standard Poems, 

-h. - ^^'''^^ ^^^^ Books, Bil)les, Prayer ]k)oks, etc., 

?l-__ii:f^^ always kept on hand. 

"A'Tfl^TTTinS^ ^^ ^' ^^'^ large Importers of Photograph Albums, 
li-L JUi l^O .^j^^i i,.^y-p ^ large and varied assort- 

j^^ ^=^ Z'^ ment at very low i)rices. 

"^V,^ '''^, The largest line in the cit}' of 

"^- Coin Bags, etc., at prices which 
Defy Competition. 

Fine Holiday Gnnds in G-reat YariEty 



All (ioods delivered free in Essex County. 

Merrill' & mackintire, 

220 ESSEX STREET, - - SALEM, 



CHRONICLE REPORT 



OF TIIK 



250th anniversary EXERCISE 



IPSWICH, AUGUST 16, 1884 



'OGETHER WITH A FEW SKETCHES ABOUT TOWN. 



ILLUSTRATED, 



irSWIClI : CUKONKLE PKESS. 

l.s,S4. 



'^■^ ^ ^ pp 



0? 



3> 

-'r 



Introduction. 



Our apology for presenting this pamphlet to the public 
is to be found in the just now more than usual interest of the 
present and former residents of Ipswich and vicinity in matters 
pertaining to our local history. The present work does not 
pretend to cover more than a small fraction of the ground it 
encroaches upon. The subject is capable of great expansion 
and the present work is issued in the hope that it may be 
followed by others of greater merit and more extensive study. 
The demand for copies of the Ipsioich Chronicle containing a 
report of the exercises attendant upon the celebration of the 
250th anniversary of the settlement of the town, being much 
greater than the publisher was able to supply, it has been 
thought best to re-publish ifr in this form. The reader will 
understand that it is substantially the same as it then appeared, 
and not confound it with the more complete and consequently 
higher priced book which the committee on the celebration 
propose to publish. The illustrations are by Arthur W. Dow 
assisted l)y Everett S. IIubl)ard, I)oth talented young artists, 
natives of Ipswich. Future Ipswich, as she reads this little 
memorial sheaf of tiie day now fast passing into history, will, 
doubtless, thank us for preserving these more unpretentious 
fragments and records; and will t,leau, it may be, some incident 
or fact which will add interest to anniversaries of coming 



years. The Ipswich of today vvill thus add her tribute of 
gratification and pleasure to the Ipswich of some distant 
tomorrow. Quite a number of the iUustrations and a few 
of the accompanying sketches have been before published 
ni the fysivich Antiquarian Papers and other publications. 
The remainder, however, have never before been given to the 
public. In preparing this pamphlet the publisher has received 
material assistance from Rev. Augustine Caldwell, of 
Worcester; to Rev. E. C). Jameson, of East Medway, and to 
Ja'-vis Cutler Howard, A. M., of Brooklyn, N. Y., thanks are 
also due for favors received. 

I. J. POTTER, Publisher. 



The Celebration. 



The 2o0th auniversaiy of the settlement of our town is a 
thing of the past. To say that the celebration of the occasion 
was a success is unnecessary, as the fact was apparent to 
everybody. If old John Winthrop, and his worthy colleagues, 
had been in town that day and seen the "madding throng" 
coursing through our streets, and heard the roar of cannon and 
the strains of music echoing along the banks of the river, they 
would have held up their hands in astonishment. A pleasanter 
day would hardly be wished for; clear, cool, and the streets 
devoid of dust. 

For a weak prior to the event, residents had l)een preparing 
to receive company on that day, and when Saturda}' morning 
dawned, it is estimated that huutlreds of the sons and daughters of 
old Ipswich had returned to tlu' parental roof tree to see their 
native town celebrate its i)irtlidav. 



At early morn, everybody was awakened by the booming of 
cannon on Town hill, and the ringing of chnrch bells. By eight 
o'clock, the streets had a decidedly lively appearance, as 
everybody had turned out to witness the forming of the procession 
on Market streeet. 

The early train brought large accessions to the multitude, 
many of them invited guests, who, as they stepped from the train, 
were met by ushers, who escorted them to carriages. On the 
8:36 train. Governor Robinson, accompanied by Adjutant- 
General Dalton, and others of his staff, besides several other 
distinguished guests arrived, and were shown to carriages, that 
of the governor being an open barouche, drawn by four handsome 
grays. He was immediately driven to his place in the procession, 
which moved at about 9 : 30, in the following order : 

Chief Marshal. COL. NATHANIEL SHATSWELL. 
Chief of Staff, CHARLES W. BAMFORD. 

AIDS : 

W. E. Lord. Charles Haskell. 

L. H. Daniels. Elisha W. Brown. 

Fred G. Ross. S. G. Brack ett. 

A. P. Jordan. Charles W. Blake. 

E. C. Brown. Wayland W. Waite. 

Curtis Damon. Lawrence McKay. 

A. W Brown. B. B. Burnham. 

W. A. Stone. J. J. Sullivan. 

Willard F. Kiusman. 
Germania Band, of Boston, 25 pieces 
General Appleton Post, 128, G. A. R., 100 meu, 
Commander, Luther Wait. 
John D. Billinos, Department Commander, and Staff. 
O. H. P. Sargent Post, 152, G. A. R.. cf Essex, 40 men. 
Commander, Timothy Andrews. 
Agawam Lodge, No. 52. I. O. O. F., Noble Grand, A. H. 
Plouft' ; Marshal, William P. Ross ; 56 men. 



Ipswich Mutual Benefit Society, Charles AUsou, President; 

N. L. Clark, Conductor. 50 men. 

Carriages containing Veteran G. A. R., Veteran Odd Fellows, 

Veteran Soldiers and Sailors. 

Mr. J. K. Jewett's Team. 

Survivors of the Denison Light Infantr}'. and Thomas L. Smith, 

only survivor — in Ipswich — of the war of 1812. 

Lynn Brass Band, 2o i)ieces, under Drum-ISLajor Colcord. 

S. F. Cauney, Chief Engineer Ipswich Fire Department. 

ASSISTANTS : 

E. W. Choate. Moses Spiller. Erastus Clarke, Jr. 

Marblehead Drum Corps. 
Warren Engine and Hose Company, George P. Smitii, Foreman. 

40 men. 
Barnicoat Engine Company ; Stephen Baker, Foreman ; 50 men. 

Dan vers Drum Corps. 
Sutton Hook and Ladder Company; N. Archer, Foreman; 

25 men. 

"Washington Blues, in barge. 

Carriages containing Veteran Odd Fellows, and veteran Soldiers 

and Sailors. 
Carriage containing Governor Robinson and Staff. 
Hon. Stephen H. Phillips ; Rev. J. C. Kimiiall, orator of the 
day; Hon. Edgar J. Sherman, Attorney-General; County 
Commissioners Raymond, Bishop, and Colby ; Mr. R. 
H. Manning; John Ward Dean, Col. A. H. Hoyt, 
and N. Safford, of the New England Histori- 
cal and Genealogical Society: Hon. V.. F. 
Stone, M. C"; Major Ben: Perley 
Poore ; ex- mayor Luther Cald- 
well, Elmira. N. Y. ; Hon. 
Geortie A. Bruce ; Rev. 
R. S. Rust, D. D. 
Selectmen of Hamilton, Rowley, and Essex. 
Rev. Augustine Caldwell ; Veterans of Ipswich Ezekiel Pea- 
body, aged 00, Jeremiah S. Perldns, aged 87, (now of 
Salem), and J. Pulsifer, (now of Salem) ; 
Mayor Hill, of Salem ; Selectmen 
and Officers of the Town. 
The procession marched over the following route : Market 
to Depot Square ; countermarch ; Market to Central ; tlirough 



Central, Gravel and High to Harris Square ; countermarch down 
High, through East, Cross, Summer, Water, Gieen, County, 
and Summer, down Main to the Soldiers' Monument ; thence by 
Green, County, School and Linden to South Main, and up 
Town Hill. 

All along the line Governor Robinson was the recijnent of 
frequent courtesies and applause, which he gracefully acknowl- 
edged. The well-known figure of Ben : Perlej' Poore was also 
singled out for recognition. The bearing of those in the i)roces- 
sion, and the general appearance of the line were the subject of 
frequent commendation from the observers. At about 11 
o'clock, the procession arrived at the North Green, where it 
was dismissed, the various organizations returning to their 
headquarters, while the crowd filed into the tent where the 
literary exercises were held. The tent was packed with listeners 
and along the sides were man}' more, anxious to get a word 
of the treat inside. 

The exercises opened with music by the Germania band, 
after which, Hon. George Haskell, President of the day. spoke 
as follows : 

*'Two hundred and fifty years ago today, the Court of 
Assistants, which then constituted the government of the 
Massachusetts colony, passed an order 'that Agawam shall be 
called Ipswich,' and from that time and event we reckon our 
existence as a town. We have met today to commemorate that 
event — to revive and stiengthen the remembrance of the 
circumstances and events attending the settlement of the town 
and of the characters and work of the men engaged in the 
undertaking. The fertility of the soil and the beauty of the 
location allured settlers here several years before the act of 
incorporation and before any grant of the land had l)een made 



or authorized, for we find that as early as 1630, September 7, 
the same day on which it was ordered that 'Tri-Mountain shall 
be called Boston,' the Court of Assistants also ordered 'that 
a warrant shall be presently sent to Agawam to command those 
that are planted there forthwith to come away.' AVho were 
then 'planted' here, and whether they left or not, are matters of 
uncertainty. A few years later, and about the time of incorpo- 
ration, some of the most prominent men in the colony came 
here to reside. They had lands granted them — town lots for 
dwellings, planting lots of about six acres near by, and larger 
tracts of farming lands more remote. Before many 3^ears elapsed 
several of these men moved from town and sold their lands here 
and some who moved away retained their lands, which passed by 
inheritance to a branch of the family who have retained them to 
the present time. Those who remained gave their attention to the 
cultivation of their lands, and agriculture became, and for two 
hundred years continued to be, the principal business of the town. 
These early settlers were well educated for that period. They 
knew the value of education, and they immediately provided for 
the instruction of their children. They understood their rights 
and were among the first in the country to assert these rights 
against the encroachments of the crown. They comprehended 
their duties as citizens, and no interest of church or town suffered 
by their neglect. They recognized tlieir obligations to a 
rightful government, and were prompt to respond to all requisi- 
tions for men or means which the exigencies of the colony made 
necessary. Living upon their farms their life was a secluded 
one, but ou these estates they enjoyed the highest 
blessings of human life — health, peace, plenty and contentment. 
But such quiet lives are not adapted to all times and to all 
temperaments, and many natives of the town in every generation 
moved away in quest of fame or fortune. We have no reason to 
complain of their departure, for they took with them generally 
cultivated intellects and good morals, and many of them became 



10 



centres of wide-spread and beneficial influence in tlieir new 
homes, and thus brought honor upon their native town. The 
people of this town have always been much interested in the 
families of those who moved therefrom, and have taken pride in 
the prominence they attained in business and professional circles 
in larger communities, and we are glad, very glad, to meet on 
this occasion, representatives of the families who moved from 
our l)orders in the earlier and the later times. We trust that 
they will find in the incidents of this day, in what they shall see 
and hear of the town, its origin, progress, people, natural 
beauties and institutions, something to increase and strengthen 
their interest in the town, its history, and its future. It is one 
of the peculiar advantages of a celebration of this kind that it 
calls these wanderers home ; that it strengthens and quickens 
the memories that cluster around the home of their childhood ; 
that it excites an interest in the localities and scenes in 
which their ancestors lived and labored, and strengthens their 
aft'ection for their native land. Love of home begets love of 
country, and it is well, by such a celebration as this, to strengthen 
the attachment of every son and daughter of the land to their 
old ancestral home, so thai wherever they may wander over the 
earth they will turn to it with fond recollection and come back to 
it in after life to revive the memories of the past and to renew 
associations and ties of their childhood and youth. During the 
long existence of the town, and since many of these families 
moved away from her borders, there have, of course, been some 
changes here, but much remains as it was in the times of our 
ancestors. Enough remains unchanged we think, to make the 
town interesting to their descendants. Many of thesis dwellings 
they built and occupied. The fields they planted and tilled are 
all around us. Their graves are liere. Sires and sons of 
successive generations rest on yonder hillside. We walk to-day 
in the paths our fathers trod ; we drink at the fountains 
from which tliey drank ; we gather around the heartlistones 



11 



which they laid ; and nature liere wears her primitive beauty, still 
unspoiled by the hand of man. From these surrounding 
hilltops we have the same grand and beautiful prospect which 
they l)eheld. On one side, the ocean, always sublime ; the 
islands, the long line of shore and distant headlands ; on the 
other side, a wide and varied prospect of hill and valle}', field 
and forest, and the little stream glistening among the branches 
and tall grass— a view which must have filled their hearts with 
gladness when they first looked upon it as their land of promise ; 
and which is spread before our sight today as our inheritance 
from them." 

Following this, came the reading of the Scriptures, by Rev. 
Charles T. Johnson, of the M. E. church, after which, the 
following hymn, written by the Rev. J. P. Cowles, was sung to 
the tune Meribah, b}' a chorus of fifty voices, under the 
direction of Mr. A. IS. Kimball, of Oberliu, Ohio, assisted 
by Mrs. Alfred Hale, pianist, and Mr. E. H. Bailey, organist: 

I love the land that gave me birth ; 
What lovelier spot can be on earth 

Than where I first drew breath .' 
I love the ashes of my sires ; 
Fresh will 1 keep their altar fires 

Until I sleep in death. 

Hail, solemn Puritanic shore ! 
All hail, thine everlasting roar 

Of deep Atlantic born ! 
Can other rock with that compete 
Where stejiped those blessed Pilgrim feet 

That cold Djcember morn ! 

Henceforth th}' ragged rocks are fair, 
New England, yea, beyond compare ; 
One sanctifies them all ; 



12 



Thy hills are crowned with yeomen bold, 
Their thews of strength thy rights enfold 
As with a granite wall. 

This is onr cradle, here our graves ; 
Where is the recreant soul that craves 

A Paris, or a Rome? 
Brave Peregrine ! the first that said, 
Here I was christened, here I wed, 

And this shall be my home. 

Young star of empire, hold thy way, 
None talk to thee of cold decay. 

Or calculate thine age. 
None speculate with curious eyes 
And base delight on thy demise. 

Or spell thy latest page. 

Foes of m}' couutr}^, think, beware ; 
Touch not the ark beloved where 

Her pledge of union lies ; 
Her band of stars shall not decline, 
Her heroes never cease to shine 

Clear in the upper skies. 

Prayer was then offered by the Rev. Temple Cutler, of 
Essex, after which the president announced that the poem by 
Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford would be reserved for after dinner, 
and the Rev. J. 0. Kuowles read the following poem, or poems, 
the latter part being a happy combination of the many local 
names and localities of Ipswich, which were received with great 
favor by the audience. 

In other climes and other days. 
The poets in their tuneful lays, 



13 



Have sung their native country's praise 

Right royally ; 
And moved the men of after years, 
To deeds heroic, or to tears ; 
And made them, spite of foes or fears, ] 

Act loyally. 

Tlieir living words have conquered fate. 
And made the deeds of all the great 
Tiie proudest trophies of the state. 

And richest dower ; 
And made the spots forever bright, 
Where heroes dared to do the right, 
And faced the wrong tho' mailed in might 

And kingly power. 

In rythmic lines we see again 

The beauties of the mountain glen ; 

Or walk within the gloomy fen, 

AVith Scotland's bard ; 
Or wander on its heath plains wide ; 
Or cleave Loch Levin's tawny tide ; 
Or climb Ben Nevis' rocky side. 

By tempests scarred. 

Again the Greeks rejoice to see 
The glimmer of the welcome sea ; 
Again at old Thermopylae 

The Spartan braves 
Roll back the swarms of Xerxes' host ; 
Humble the proud invader's boast. 
And glorif}' their coast 

With patriot graves. 

But time would fain the tale to tell 
Of running stream, or barien fell ; 



14 



Of mouutaiu puss, or shady dell 

Sacred iu soug ; 
Of Swiss or Saxon, Hun or Celt, 
Whose souls the thrill of freedom felt, 
That nerved Iheir sturdy arms, that dealt 

Death blows to wrong. 

Scarce humbler men we sing to day. 
Scarce humbler deeds these lines display. 
Than those, of other bards the lay 

In ages past ; 
For every test applied to men 
To measure greatness now or then, 
Declares our fathers to have been 

Of merit vast. 

Small need is there our limping verse 
Should trace their lives heroic course. 
And to our age their fame rehearse ; 

In fulsome strain ; 
For never since the world liegan. 
And deeds in widening currents ran, 
Have men endured the more for man, 

His rights to gain. 

What though we read of fairer skies. 
And vine clad hills that higher rise. 
And greener fields to greet the eyes 

Than these they loved : 
We know our skies are fair and bland ; 
Our hills in modest beauty stand ; 
Our fields spread wide on every hand. 

In verdure clothed. 

Our old town lies beneath the hill ; 
Its shady streets are wide and still ; 



15 



Its river murmurs past the mill 

As years increase ; 
The church aud school retain their place, 
While on the whole a quiet grace 
Rests like God's blessing on the race 

In sweetest peace. 

I have searched through the records with sedulous ken. 

To learn all that I could of those ventursome men. 

Who lirst built their rude homes on this since famous spot. 

And divided tliese lauds to their households by lot ; 

But I tludthat their part in founding a state 

Kept tlu'ui too busy by far their deeds to relate. 

I suppose those old chaps iuid a vei-}' hard time. 

As the}' worried life through in this rigorous clime ; 

And I dare to presume it is not very rash 

If I say they often were hard up for cash ; 

That their mud chimneys tcoulcl smoke, and their whitest chicks 

Would quite often "peg out" with the old-fashioned pips. 

Then there were the measles, and the big whooping cough, 

And ugly warts on their hands the}^ could not get off; 

And besides other troubles that pestered their brats, 

Thej' had family jars and connubial spats, 

With precisely the same little bother and fret 

Their unfortunate descendants struggle with yet. 

What fun it would be could we only restore 

The picture, now faded, of years gone before; 

The wheel and the distaff — tlie cradle and chair — 

The queer Mother Hubbard and nicely puffed hair ; 

The briglit i)ewter [jlatters tluit answered for tin ; 

The hole in the door for the cat to get in ; 

The pot hooks aud trammels that hung from tlie crane ; 

The pots and the kettles attached to the same ; 

The wide tire-place with the mantle above it. 



16 



On this side an oven, on that side a closet ; 

The bellows, the shovel, the poker and tongs, 

And each hung up or standing where it belongs ; 

The queer sprawling creatures they dubbed fire dogs, 

That bravely stood under their backload of logs ; 

The musket and cow's horn hung on rude brackets ; 

The corner beyond with it's homespun jackets ; 

The dames with their kerchiefs and caps white as snow ; 

The men's hair in pigtails, each tied with a bow ; 

All would strike us as odd, and force us to grin 

At the queer little world these queer folks were in ; 

And yet, after all, there might be much more grinning. 

If they could see us with our follies and sinnmg. 

Some grumbling old heathen, I've forgotten his name. 

Said, "For all the world's mischief some woman's to blame:'' 

But his speech would have been a great deal exacter 

Had he said, "In human affairs she's chief factor." 

All know Mother Eve, in the very beginning, 

Susceptible Adam beguiled into sinning ; 

While Adah and Zillah, each but half of a wife, 

Made muddle and torment of old Lamech's life. 

But time will allow me but a brief allusion 

As I dump them all in, in a careless confusion ; 

There were Rebecca, and Jane, and old Keturah, 

Rachel, Ophelia, and prophetess Deborah. 

Abigail and Mary, and grandmother Eunice, 

Zenobia, who queened it outside ot Tunis , 

And Helen of Troy, the most winning rf ladies. 

And that other Helen, the mother of babies. 

There were Huldah. and Ruth, and jNIehitable, too. 

And wicked old Jezeliel, whom the eunuchs slew, 

Phoibe and Lois, Tryphena and Tryphosa, 

(I must not forget the maid of Saragossa.) 

Elizabeth, Priscilla. Betsy, and Hann"b. 



17 



IsjibcUa, Victoria, and Susannah, 

Xautippe, the scold, who blew up old Socrates, 

Pocahontas, the maid with feet in moccasins, 

Jerusha, Jemima, and old Mother Carey 

Whose chickens will never fly over the prarie. 

And gay Cleopatra, whose post mortem fame is 

Not greater than that of the great Semamaris. 

Now here I should add names of ladies of worth, 

VV^ho blessed the first years of this place of our birth ; 

But recorders were just a little bit blind, 

Or bachelors crusty, who wives could not find ; 

For scarce has a woman had mention or place. 

Except note of the death that conies to the race ; 

To snatch her in part from oblivion's grave 

One woman's short story old John Wiuthrop gave, 

As worth recording for the years to come ; 

Because, thougii blind and deaf, and also dumb. 

She still, in spite of nature's cruel dealing. 

The names of men could tell by sense of feeling. 

Yet even here is evidence completest 

That man. and not the woman, is the weakest; 

For had she chanced to be of man's estate possessed, 

No woman's name by any sense could have been guessed. 

That the women of our earl>' history may this day have 
their due share of honor, I offer the following sentiment : 

Here's to the women of the olden time ! 

The women strong and brave and true. 
Who bore the rigors of this northern clime. 

To them are cheerful honors due ! 
They were no courtly dames in raiment fine 

With gems their tresses gleaming thro* ; 
Their's was a robing of a faith sublime. 

That made them strong- and brave and true. 



18 



Here's to the women of the olden day ! 

The wives and sisters true and sweet. 
Who walked with even steps in virtue's way ; 

For them are stintless honors meet. 
They were no triflers, trilling lightsome lays, 

With love-lorn victims at their feet ; 
Their' s were the songs of faith and holy praise 

That made them women true and sweet ! 

Here's to the women now beneath the sod ! 

The mothers tender, wise and good. 
Who taught their children love and faith in God 

By which they brave in danger stood. 
The paths of righteousness they humbly trod. 

With love restraining natures rude ; 
Their strength was virtue and a faith in God, 

That made them tender, wise and good. 

Then change the measure, theme and so-forth, and adopt the 
well-known style of Wordsworth : 

How dear to my heart are the names heard in childhood, 

When fond recollection decrees their review ! 
The Caldwells and Treadwells, and a tall Underwood, 

And all the old codgers my early days knew ; 
The flock of the Shats wells, the Lanes who lived near them, 

Russells and Rosses where the pudding-bag split ; 
The Perleys and Potters, with Nourses to rear them, 

Are the names of some people I heard when a chit. 
The old-fashioned titles — the -time honored titles — 
The names of the people I heard when a chit. 

The Kimballs and Cogswells are names heard with pleasure, 
And Baker, and Kinsman, and Conant as well, 

The Browns, Smiths and Wades, with the Waits, fill this meaure 
And make room for Appletons, Dodges and Bell ; 



19 



The Willcombs, the Farleys, the Ilaskells, and Goodhues, 

The Heards and the Hodgkins, the Clarks, and the Millers, 
The Colburns, and Choates, Cowles and Perkins' crews, 

The Lakemaus, the Willetts, the Rusts, and the Spillers. 
The old-fashioned titles — the time honored titles — 
The names of the people I heard in my youth. 

How sweet to old crones in some kitchen's warm corner. 

To call up the names, Ellsworth, Sutton and Wise, 
And tell of the pranks of Lord, Manning or Warner, 

In the days when they dazzled their girlish eyes. 
And now, far removed from the home of ray childhood. 

Of Harrises, Duunells, and Newmans I hear. 
With Averills, Fellows, and Fosters as good, 

The names of the people once sweet to my ear. 

The old-fashioned titles — the time honored titles — 
The names of the people still sweet to my ear. 

I conclude with a short walk, very abruptly ended : 

And now, fellow-townsmen, it is well to suggest 
That before we lie down on our pillows to rest. 
We walk through our village, and out on our plains, 
To find the old spots with their Avouderful names, 
And more wondeiful legends of red men or white. 
The ears of our childhood that filled with delight. 
Among these old scenes we will wander at will, 
Begining our walk here, on Meeting-house hill. 
Here rose the first temple of praise and of prayer. 
And here were the pillory, stocks, and the chair 
In which the women who dared to arouse 
The town with their tongues, were given a souse. 
Here, also, paraded, when the hamlet was young, 
A slanderous vixen, a split stick on her tongue. 
Here the grave ruling elders of church and of state 
Together held counsel o'er interests great ; 



20 



And here caine the people ou days for election, 

With beans, black and white, to make their selection 

As they dropped them into the box ; so it seems 

They who counted those ballots had to "know beans." 

And now lift up your eyes — there, verdant and still. 

Is the play-ground of childhood, the old Town Hill. 

We pass on our way leading down to the valley. 

The ancient old thoroughfare, Clam Shell Alley. 

Not to tax our pedal extremities hard. 

We will leave on our right our famous Ship Yard ; 

And, rather than put our rhymes out of joint, 

Just mention that down there lies "Nabby's Foint." 

The ''Diamond Stage" that never had wheels; 

And "Labor in Vain," too crooked for eels. 

To climb once more the well remembered hill, 

Hog Lane, ascending, helps our footsteps still. 

At length we reach the summit, and there comes 

To sight an isle of sand, and pears, and plums; 

This side the river, with its branching creeks. 

And, fairer than the Euxine to the Greeks, 

Beyond, the ocean rises to the view. 

And, ceaseless, rolls its waves of liquid blue. 

Wh}' need we weary our old limbs with toil? 

Let eyes, not feet, now march about the soil ! 

At first, and landward, seek the landscape's brim, 

And count the verdant hills that shut it in. 

See "Great Neck," where they pasture sheep and lambs. 

It shares the famous camping ground foi- clams. 

See "Heartbreak," where in vain a maid sought lover; 

And Jewett's, Prospect, Eagle, Boar, and Plover. 

To climb on Turkey Hill, our old-time strength is o'er. 

We'll be content to waddle round on Turkey Shore. 

What famous spots within this landscape lie. 

Which spreads its light and shade before the eye ! 



21 



"New Boston," where wc go1)l)le(l the chcries, 

And "■Bull Brook" wliere we picked (^iir berries, 

And "Piue Swiinip" where wc trmni)ed from morn till late. 

To find at dusk our homeward road at '"■Red Gate." 

If our eyes are as sharp as we claim them to be, 

There's Hogtown, and Firetown, and Flytown to see, 

And Linebrook, and Goose Village, with Goshea beyond, 

But never the least glimpse of old Baker's pond. 

We cannot forget tiiose bright days if we would. 

When we traveled for fun to old Candlewood. 

The whole town to us was filled full of charms. 

From Little Comfort 'way around to The Farms. 

We turn our eyes below, and, at our feet. 

Elm-shaded, lies in peace old Pudding street — 

So named because a pudding, hard and drj'. 

Was stolen by some tipsy passers-by. 

These later years from vulgar names have shrunk, 

And called it High, because the thieves were drunk ! 

But we must i)ause. The mem'ries of the i)ast 

Like ocean tides are rising deep and fast. 

Below are corners, streets and pleasant nooks, 

That charmed our willing hours away from books. 

And space supplied for play, or shade for rest. 

In da3's agone, our sweetest and our best." 

The anthem ''Praise the Lord," was tlien sung b}' the 
chorus, followed by the oration bj' Hev. John Calvin Kimball, of 
Hartford, Conn., a sou of Ipswich. The abstiact which 
follows, gives a very comprehensive idea of its scope and 
interest : 

"Two hundred and fifty years ago it was ordered by the 
General Court of Massachusetts asseml)led in Boston, that 
' Agawam shall be called Ipswitch ;' and this act, the modest 
christening of our infant town, born here in the wilderness 



22 



seventeeu months before, we, its children and grandchildren, 
have now to celebrate. 

Two hundred and fifty years of municipal life measured with 
the antiquity of many towns of the old world, with the two hundred 
and fifty thousand years of man's probable abode on earth, and 
with the vast periods since the earth itself emerged from its 
swaddling-clothes of fire-mist, are of course only the merest 
points of time, hardly worthy of a passing glance in the antiqua- 
rian's backward looKing thought ; but measured by the events and 
by the development of the world's real life, they are hardly less 
than all the vast ages, counted or uncounted, that stretch behind 
them to the farthest rim of time. When John Winthrop and 
his twelve companions made their first passage from here to 
Boston, if the}' had ever heard of Copernicus and his new 
theory of the sun and earth, or of Galileo and his ' Tuscan 
optic glass,' or of Harvey and his ' Circulation of the blood,' or 
of Lord Bacon and his ' Novum Organum,' it was only as far-off 
rumors not coloring iu the sliglitest degree their actual thought. 

The chief part of our great discoveries in science and art. and 
of all our grand ideas about liberty, self-government, toleration 
and the rights of man, and not only this but our present way of 
looking at the universe, at nature, man, life, religion, everything 
- as under the reign of constitutional laws rather than of 
personal will— have been brought to light since their day. And 
in passing from the Ipswich of 1884 back to the Ipswich of 1634, 
we pass from the modern to the ancient, from the noisy Now, 
with its telegraph and steam engine, to 

' Tliose silent hall? 

VVlieiv lit' tlie hy^ouc a^i'i'S in their ])a!is,' 
almost as completely as in going to the birthday of a town which 
had counted its thousand years. But why should we go back at 
at all into the past ; why take any more notice of this da}' than 
of any other in the town's history ; why not heed those who tell 
us that regard for the olden time is a foolish sentiment ; that 



23 



what we need io study is not our ancestors but ourselves ; and 
that the truly progressive community is the one which spends its 
money in building up factories rather than monuments, and in 
opening workshops rather than tombs? 

It is a question which receives a most satisfactory answer 
from one of these very sciences, that of evolution, which has 
come up in our time. The past is found under its teachings to 
be one of the mightiest of all factors in making the present, the 
study of our ancestors to be the surest of all wa3's by which to 
know ourselves. Tlie Ipswich of today ; its fields, factories, 
churches and schools, and its living men and women, are onh' 
the leaves and blossoms of a tree wiiose root, trunk and branches 
are the Ipswich of the past, as impossible to be lived and 
understood without it as those of our gardens would be if severed 
from their parent stem. We work, worship, and believe, even the 
most radical of us, not with our own strength, faith and devotion 
alone, but with those also of our buried sires. It is because the 
truth-seekers of our day stand on the shoulders of all the 
truth-seekers of the past, rather than because of their own 
tallness that they see so well the grand new truths of our time ; 
and when our 38-4 Ipswich soldiers went forth in the late Union 
war to defend their country and the cause of liberty on new 
battle fields, it was the courage, patriotism and liberty loving 
of all the heroes of the grand old town who had fought the 
battles of the Rcvolutit)n, marched to the siege of Louisburg a; id 
faced under woods and stars tlie Indian tomahawk in days gone 
by, that again, side by side, with their own valor Hashed in their 
eyes, thrilled in tiieir heaits and l)lazed in their guns. 

' Words pass as wind, but where gre.it deeds are done 
A power abides transfused from sue to son : 
'I'lie boy feels deeper meanings tluill bis ear. 
Which, tingling tlirongii iiis pulse, life long shall run 
With sure inipnlse to keep his' honor elear, 
When, pointing round, his father whispers ' Here, 



24 



Hero where we sang stood tliey, tlie pnrel}' o:reat, 
Then Nameless, now a Power, and mixed with fate' 
And as every farmer knows that digging in the earth among 
the roots of the trees, is one of tlie surest ways by which to 
increase and enrich their fruit np among the branches, so our 
town's money and time spent to-day in digging among the 
memories of its two hundred and fifty by-gone years are not for 
a pleasant holiday merely, or for the gratification of an idle 
curiosity alone, but are what will show themselves better than 
by any other use in its richness of growth through all the years 
to come. 

Moreover the fact that our town has grown up from its past 
to be only a small community and tliat it remains still, not a cit}", 
but only a town, makes it all the worthier of being thus 
commemorated and studied. What Tennyson says of a single 
flower is equally true of a single town : > 

Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck yon out of the crannies; 
Hold you here root and all in mv hand. 
Little flower — but if I conid understand 
Whiit you ;ire, root and all, and all in all, 
I would know what (lod and man is.' 
The towns of New England are its municipal flowers, the 
thing to know is to know what of all government is alike 
the most human and the most Divine. It was within their limits 
that was first tried on American soil the great experiment of a 
free Connnonwenlth ; by their hand that was organized as never 
before the now famous principle of a government 'of the peoi)le, 
V)y the peo|)le, for the people;' in their school that liberty learned 
to read and write not a few of the grand words with which so often 
since she has thrilled all humanity's heart ; out of their ideal that 
she afterwards carved the colossal gr:indeur of the whole 
llepublic. 

The fact is, that no one can understand the real nature and 
value of democracy. INoone especially the foundation principles 



25 



of our own government who does not unilersstiind its Nevv 
England towns ; and among them all tliere is none in which their 
characteristics are more complete and the processes of their 
growth more distinct, none which has a fairer record, or that will 
pa}^ better for being studied, than our own beautiful Ipswich. 

' Whatever moulds of various brahi 
E'er sliaped the world to weul or woe, 
VVhate'er made f iui)ires wax or vvuuo, 
To him that hath not eyes \n vain, 
Our viUage microscope can show.' 
And so as a subject valuable in itself and appropriate fo'- 
this occasion, I want to speak of the forces concerned in the 
planting and develo[)ment of Ipswich as a characteristic New 
England town, not of its municipal structure alone, for this is 
only its skeleton, but of all that relates to its life and spirit, and 
that gives it a flesh and blood reality- 
There is no denying that blood tells in the making of a 
community, even more than in the making of an individual. 
When civilization decided to try its experiment of a new nation 
on these western shores, it asked of humanity, first of all, its 
ver}^ best seed, and most nobly did humanity respond. As old 
William Stoughton expressed it in his Eleclion sermon of 1CG8, 
* God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over 
into this wilderness:' nay, more than that; He sifted for this 
purpose a whole race. Its settlei"s were not only of English 
blood, but of the old Aryan stock. For live thousand years 
they had been on their westward travels. All Northern Enro[)e 
bore the rich marks of their [)ilgrim feet, and when they 
undertook to conquer the wilderness here, they had in their veins 
the strength, courage and manhood which had alread}' concpiered 
a score of wilds at home. John Wiutlirop and his twelve 
comi)auions, who settlecl among the hills of Ipswicii in 1(533, 
a hundred others with their families a year after, and at tiie end 
of fifteen years a thousand in all — showed to the fullest extent 
the cpialities of this original New pyngland stock. In 1(J38, 



26 



Cotton Mather said of Ipswich that ' Here was a renowned church 
consisting mostly of such ilhiminated Christians that their pastors 
liad not so much disciples as judges,' and eight years later, 
Johnson, in his ' Wonder Working Providence,' wrote that ' the 
peopling of this towne ( Ipswich ) is by men of good ranke and 
quality, many of them having the yearly revenue of large lands 
in England before they came to the wilderness.' The brilliant 
civilian and brave Indian fighter, General Samuel Appleton ; 
New England's first poetess, Ann Bradstreet ; the leading divine. 
Rev. Thomas Cobbett ; the soldier, scholar and statesman, Major 
General Daniel Deuison ; the free thinker, Nicholas Eaton ; the 
quaint old physician, Giles Firman, whose affections were equally 
divided between 'physick and divinitee' ; the New England 
William Hubbard ; the eloquent theologian, John Norton, author 
of the first Latin book ever printed in America, and a member of 
the Cambridge Synod ; Deputy Governor Samuel Symonds and 
his wife Rebekah ; America's first abolitionist, Richard Sal ton- 
stall ; Nathaniel Ward, preacher, poet and scholar, whose 'Simple 
Cobbler of Agawam ' has long been the town's ancient classic, 
and whose ' Body of Liberties,' the foundation stone of our 
State's independent sovereignty— their names and deeds are 
among New England's historic treasures. Not another town in 
the commonwealth could show a brighter list. 

They brought wisdom, energy and dignity to the shaping of 
affairs at home and under their influence Ipswich for a whole 
generation had a leading voice with the colony at large, on the 
field of war, in the Ecclesiastical Synod and at the General 
Court. It was a stock, to be sure, which, so far as its own 
direct members were concerned, immediately afterward almost 
entirely disappeared. True it is that Ipswich experienced the 
intellectual dark day which came over all NewEnglaad in the second 
aud third generations. Though the town had its Farley, Wade, 
Hodgkins, Wigglesworth, and Dana in the Revolution, and in its 
later years its Dana, Frisbee, Oakes, Manning, Haramett, Heard, 



27 



Choate, Loi'dand Shatswell. they were mostly of other connections 
and no one would claim that the town could show a list now 
that would compare at all for eminence with that of its earliest 
generations. 

Nature's method of using l)lood for the building up 
of a race is intensely democratic. She works the same as 
in building up a continent. First, a great mountain chain 
is thrown b}' some convulsion high above the surrounding 
sea. Then, instead of l)eing built up higher and higher, 
it is worn down b\' the forces of nature to form a level 
around. Another convulsion throws up another mcuntain range, 
to be in turn levelled. So the work goes on. So, likewise, in 
the building up of the luiman race. It is not by liuilding up 
still higher a few families that she improves the whole, but by 
marriage, emigration and mingling in various ways to level these 
families down to tlie whole, and raise the whole thereby. Thus 
we are not the inheritors of tiie old families but of the old virtues. 
These illustrious settlers of the early days have had their qualities 
diffused to the whole community. The mountains have levelled 
up a continent. 

When Masconnomet, Sagamore of Agawam, sold it for £20 
to John Winthrop, the place was essentially m a state of nature, 
the soil covered with forests, and the inhabitants dei)endent on 
Indian paths. It was not to be wondered at that such darkness 
and gloom should cause the growth of a stern religion and a 
delusion like the ancient witchcraft. Around them the dark 
shadows of tlie primeval shades, strange footprints were seen in 
the winter snow ; glimpses of beasts and beings only spoken of 
beneath the breath were had in the wilds. AVhat wonder that 
their spirit was depressed to a stern and superstitious vigor. 

The first act of the settlers was to organize a church, the 
ninth oldest in the Commonwealth. Governor "Winthrop himself 
on one occasion walked the entire distance from Boston " to 
exercise the spirit of prophecy." The church bore all the 



28 



distinctive characteristics of Puritanism in its pastor and its 
teacher, its deacons, its tithing men, and its timing of the 
preaching by the hour-glass ; the separation of the men and the 
women, the arms stacked at the door, and its long sermons, — the 
minister's salary being shortened if he shortened his discourse. 
In harmony with this was the stripping and public whipping of 
the Quakeress, Lydia Wardwell, in front of the tavern amid a 
large circle of men and boys, the poor woman being 
stripped to the waist, and her naked breasts torn to gashes 
by the rough posts to which she was lashed. In IGGl the 
selectmen were ordered to sell the farm of a man and woman 
who made the distance an excuse for their absence from the 
sanctuary. The town and the parish, the Town house and 
meeting house were all one, and that one the church. A 
person could not be a hog reeve till he experienced a change 
of heart. Fence viewers to be elected in town meeting had 
first to have been elected for all eternity in the counsels of 
of heaven and it was no use for a man to aspire to be a Town 
Crier who was not sound on the question of original sin, or a 
bugler to a training band if his moral trumpet gave forth an 
uncertain sound. To make the town a small theocracy and to 
keep the devil out of its corn by putting the Lord into the 
fences, that everywhere was the aim." 

The oration was listened to with much interest, and the 
applause was frequent. Following it came the reading of Gail 
Hamilton's poem, by Mr. Roland Smith : 

Throned on her rock-bound hill, comely, and strong and free, 

vShe sends a daughter's greeting to Ipswich over the sea ; 

But she folds to her motherly heart, with welcome motherly 

sweet. 
The children home returning to sit at her beautiful feet. 

Fair is her heritage, fair with the blue of the bountiful sky; 
Green to the warm, white sand, her billowy marshes lie ; 



29 



Her summer calm is pulsed with the beat of the bending oar 
Where the river shines and sleeps in the shadows of Turkey 
shore. 

Down from the storied Past, tremble the legends still 

As the woe of the Indian uiaidrn wtiils over from Heart Break 

Hid, 
And, alas the un-namable footprint! and the lap-stone dropped 

below ! 
From places so pleasant — poor devil — no wonder he hated 

to go ! 

Fair is my realm, saith the mother, but fairest of all my domain, 
Are the sons I have reared, and the daughters, sturdy of body 

an<l brain. 
Tender of heart and of conscience, ready, with flag unfurled, 
For service at home, or, if need be, to the uttermost bounds 

of the world. 

Never my bells of the morning fail to the morning air 

With their summons of young minds to learning, with their 

summons of all souls to prayer. 
Gracious yon pile where are stored me the treasures of thought 

today — 
More gracious my children who poured me the wealth of the far 

Cathay. 

Mourn your lost leader, my hamlet, sore needed, yet never 

again 
To mingle his words of wisdom in the wide councils of men ; 
Nor forget whose hand first plucked its secret from the 

i!i[ountain King's stormy breast, 
And held up the torch of Freedom over the great Northwest. 

Thrilled to him, hearts of the peoi)le, whose eyes were a 
smouldering fire, 



30 



"Whose voice to the listening multitude rang like an angel's 

lyre — 
But I hear the trill of light laughter in the thickets of 

feathery fronds, 
Whei'e a little lad dares for white lilies the deep of Chebacco 

ponds. 

Rest in the peace of God forever, O man of good will 

Who gathered the healing of heaven in the sunshine of Sweet 

Briar hill. 
Far from the city's tumult, with my soft airs overblown — 
In my arms of love I hold him, a stranger, and yet my own. 

Where the footsteps of Maro wandered, where the waters of 

Helicon flow, 
Where the cedars of Lebanon wave, where the path of the people 

should go, 
O Blessed blind eyes that see — from the wrong dividing the 

right, 
Shed on the darkness of day the gleam of your radiant night 

And thou, Desire of the Nation, loved from the sea to the sea 

High above stain as a star, still upward thy pathway be ! 

By thy blood of the stately Midland, by thy strength of the 

Northern Pine. 
By the sacred fire bright on thy hearthstone, I name thee and 

claim thee mine. 

Come to me dear my children, from every land under the sun ; 
Nay, I feel by the stir of my spirit that all worlds are but one ; 
Nay, I know by my quickening heartthrob they are gathering by 

my side — 
Veiled by God's grace with his glory —the dead who have never 

died. 

Fathers whose steadfast uprightness their sons through no time 
can forget — 



I 



31 



Mothers whose tenderness breatlies in many an old home yet — 
Hushed is the air for their coming, holy the light with their love ; 
What shall the grateful earth pledge to the Heaven above? 

The best that we have to give ; loyalty staunch and pure 

To the land thej' love and the God they served while the earth 

and heavens endure. 
We can bear to the future no greater than to us the past hath 

brought — 
Faith to the lowliest duty, truth to the loftiest thought. 

The exercises closed with the singing of the doxology, and the 
beudiction, it being necessary to omit the hymn of Kev. J. O. 
Knowles, owing to the length of the exercises. 

After a short intermission, the company repaired to the 
dinner tent where plates had been laid for one thousand people. 
The arrangements for the accommodation of the invited guests 
were excellent, each being assigned a place at the table, by the 
able ushers in attendance. Upon tlie north side of the tent was 
a raised platform, upon which were placed the tables for these ; 
At the first table sat Hon. George Haskell, president of the day, 
Governor Robinson, Rev. J. C. Kimball, Judge Appleton, of 
Maine, Rev. Ur. Pike, of Rowky, Hon. George B. Loring, 
Adjutant-General Dalton, Rev. T. Fiauk Waters, toastmasfer, 
John Heard, Dr. D. D. Slade, Mrs. Slade, Hon. Stephen H. 
Phillips, Mrs. Phillips, Mrs. J. C. Kimball, Hon. E. J. Sherman, 
Hon. Leverett Salstonstall, Rev. E. H. Palmer, Mrs. Palmer, 
Hon. R. S. Spoflford, Miss Mary A. Dodge, (Gail Hamilton), 
Rev. J. P. Cowles, Mrs. Cowles, Miss. Dyer, of the Couqr&ia- 
tionalfst^ Jeremiah 8. Perkins, Joseph Pulsifer, P^noch Lord, 
Rev. J. S. Hanaford, Mrs. Hanaford, Rev. George D. Wildes, 
of New York, >rrs. Wagner, Rev. Jesse Wagner, Dr. Henry 



32 



"Wheatland, President of the Essex Institute ; N. Saflford, Hon. 
N. A. Horton, of Salem, Chairman N. R. Failey, of the 
selectmen, Rev. Mr. Briggs, C. H. Warner, County Commis- 
sioners Colby, Graves and Bishop. Rev. Mr. Angier, Mrs. 
Angier, Rev. C. N. Smith, Rev. J. W. Dadman, Benjamin 
Kimball and Otis Knuball. 

At the second table, Hon. Charles A. Sayward, chairman of 
the committee of arrangements, presided. On his right sat Hon. 
E. F. Stone, and at his left Hon. G. A. Bruce ; and other 
guests assigned were Major Ben : Perley Poore, Hon. Luther 
Caldwell, Mrs. Caldwell, Roland Cotton Smith, Department 
Commander John D. Billings, Rev. Mr. Johnson, Mrs. 
Johnson, D. B. Hubbard, historian ; Rev. C. Southgate, Mrs. 
Southgate, Rev. H. A. Hazen, Rev. Dr. Leeds, of Baltimore, 
Mayor Hill, of Salem, and many others. 

After grace by Rev. John Pike, D. D., of Rowley, the edibles 
were discussed, at the close of which President Haslvell said : 

Ladies and gentlemen : — I shall not trespass upon your time 
in the presence of so many eminent guests whom you desire 
to hear. But I must take this opportunity to bid you all a 
hearty welcome to the town and to the festivities of the da3\ 
I also desire to express the great gratification the people of 
this town must feel at your interest in these exercises, and to 
thank yon for your attendance upon this occasion. I will 
invite you all to be here at tlie next centennial celebration 
fifty years from to-day. It will undoubtedly be the lot of 
some of you— perhaps of many — to be able to be here at 
that time, ai^d I assure all that shall then come that the}' will 
receive a cordial welcome. 

1 now have the pleasure of introducing to you, ladies 
and gentlemen, the Rev. T. Frank Waters, of this town, who 



33 



has kindly consented to assist in these exercises, by introducing 
the sentiments tliat are to be submitted to you, anol l)y 
eliciting, as we hope, responses from some of our eminent 

guests. 

The first toast proposed was "'The President of the 
United iStates," to wliich the band responded. The next toast 
'' The Commonwealth of Massachusetts," brought up Governor 
Robinson, who said : 

''Ladies and gentlemen: — To all the good children and 
descendants of the old town of Ipswich she gives to-day a 
welcome from her heart ; by her fireside, in her sacred places 
nearest where men feel and love, there she bids her chosen 
ones return to drink anew at the fountain of inspiration that 
made our state and country. Personally, 1 cannot of myself 
claim to be a descendant of your honored town, and my 
memory and research have failed me in trying to find some 
great-great-grandujothcr or some cousin in the nineteenth 
degree who was born, or lived here, whom 1 might claim. 
Uut that failing me, and it being my official privilege to-day to 
speak for the Commonwealth, 1 desire to say that the old 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts conies back to the town of 
Ipswich to-day as one of the town's children ; she was born 
in this and other communities like this. She is younger than 
Ipswich herself. We speak of the ancient Commonwealth, 
while the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that we know, 
that is founded on the principles expressed in her constitution 
which has been our guide these many years, that Common- 
wealth is nearly one hundred and fifty years the junior of 
the town of Ipswich. This community and others like it 
scattered all over this colony, expressed the pur[)ose, the 
inspiration of the people that dwelt in them, and gradually 
come out of it tlie fruitage that developed into the state we 
call our own. J^ooU at it. What concern have we as a 



34 



state today that was not in the control of the town 200 or 250 
years ago? It took care of all matters of expenditure, 
provided seats in the meeting house. The}^ even selected the 
leader of the choir, they took care of the schools and morals 
of the people, and raised troops and equipped them. Many of 
the customs and ideas of those times excite our curiosity and 
provoke sometimes our ridicule, but the people at that time 
were laying the foundations of the state upon a solid basis. 
It is not a cause for regret that the people stood by the 
Sabbath in the olden time. It will never injure this Common- 
wealth to adhere to the same principles for a quarter of a 
thousand 3'ears to come. 

It has been said twice to-day that one of my predecessors 
walked all the way from Boston to Ipswich. Somehow or 
other there seems to be a kind of intimation that I didn't 
come the proper way. (Laughter) I have a very strong 
suspicion that if .lohn Winthrop had the Eastern Railroad at his 
command, he would have purchased a ticket by that route, unless 
they exercised their characteristic generosity and gave him a 
pass. I find that the Governor did more than well down 
hei'e. He came down Saturday night, and, finding the parish 
in want of a pastor, proceeded to exercise by way of prophecy. 
Since I discovered that, I wonder liow many more duties are 
to be put upon the governor of Massachusetts. I submit that 
of all the men of intelligence, fertility and ingeuuity, that 
have sat in the executive chair of Massachusetts from the days 
of Winthrop to those of my immediate predecessor, none, 
not one, have conducted themselves in the good old way. 
Not forgetting the principles that underlie good sound religion, 
the fathers interested themselves in the intelligence of the 
people, the making of man in his brain all that it is possible 
for him to be, and in pursuance of this they established early 
a school, one of the earliest in the country, and it may be 
the pioneer in the world. And though they stood by both 



principles, religion and intelligence, tliey knew also how to be 
free. Liberty they wonlcl hiive, and thej' connted every man 
an enemy who attempted to thwart their high purpose. It 
will indeed be well for him who shall stand here 250 j'ears 
hence and speak for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, if 
he can look on the history then completed and say as well of 
the town as may be said now. Jt rests with the generation 
of to-day what the verdict of the men shall be who write our 
history in the future History is not made in centuries, but 
in days ; we live not as a whole, but in individuals' lives. 
Two hundred and fifty years from now we shall be forgotten, 
but your visitor to-daj', whom I represent, will be here. 
Massachusetts dies not, because she exists in the living and 
endless life of her people. Massachusetts, in the prophecy of 
the present, will be here stronger, I take it, than now. A 
Massachusetts of an advanced civilization, I trust, of a correct 
high life, of pure i)rinciples, and devotion to all that helps 
the development and advancement of men. 

I give you old Ipswich ; may she be, for the 250 years next 
to come, for honor and liberty, and when her next celebration 
comes may she be as worthy as at present.'" 

To the next, ''John Winthrop, Jr., and the Original 
Founders of the Town of Ipswich," a letter was read from 
Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, and Hon. Leverett Salstonstall 
spoke as follows : 

"Mr, President, ladies and gentlemen : — I feel difhdent in 
speaking in the place of the eloquent gentleman (Mr. Winthrop) 
who is not here. His imposing presence and rare eloquence 
would have done the occasion far greater justice. Carrying 
ourselves back 250 years to these noble men and women of 
1(334, we look with ever increasing astonishment upon the 
structure the\' reared, supported b}' the two great columns of 
religion and law. We have them ever before us in person, in 



36 



the remains of their work, and we have ever increasing 
gratitnde to offer them. We are taught to thhik 250 years a 
great distance, a quarter of a thousand years ; yet many an 
anecdote brings it near us. Col. Thomas H. Perkins, (whose 
grandchildren are here) was fond of telling how, when a young- 
man, he had often seen an old man on the Cape who had 
seen Peregrine White, the child born on the Mayflower ! One 
link only between the Pilgrim Fathers and the man we have 
known in our day ! Many such things bring these founders 
near us. Last autumn, aiv English gentleman called on me 
and called me "cousin," having traced a connection through 
my emigrant ancestor. At the Salem celebration, the eloquent 
orator recalled the famous four, Conant, Woodery, Balch 
and Palfrey, who accompanied Endicott, and who welcomed 
Winthrop and Salstonstall from the "Arbella" saying each 
and all these names were represented in the audience before 
him. Dean Stanley, who was present, held up his hands in 
astonishent, saying no town in England could show such an 
instance. We are apt to think of the Puritan emigrants as stern 
old men who cared for nothing but one-hour sermons preached 
through the nose. On the contrary they were young men, 
many tenderly nurtured, and with all the ardor of youth. 
My ancestor was but 24, bringing a young bride of 18, and when 
to-day I looked on a dilapitated structure labelled, "Old 
Salstonstall House, 1635," I felt as a pilgrim in the Holy 
Land. So let it be with all of us. Cherish the memory of 
those noble natures who sacrificed so much. Let this be a 
constantly recurring festival." 

"The Founders of the First Chui'ch of Ipswich," was 
responded to by Rev. E. B. Palmer, of the First Churcli, 
whose remarks were very interesting. "The distinguished men 
who have illustrated the annals of Ipswich," found response 
in Dr. Daniel Denison Slade, and Hon. Charles A. Sayward. 



37 



"Our Guests." brought interesting reintuks from Hon. Ben: 
Perley Poore, and Rev. George Leeds, D. D.. who proposed 
"The town of Ipswich," to which the band responded. Hon. 
Kichiird .S. Spofford then read the poem of Mrs. Harriet 
Prescott .Spofford, prefacing it by a few interesting remarks. 

GLad that two centuries and a lialf 

Have closed your happy labor. 
From all her rivers Newbury sends 

A greeting to her neighbor. 

And zoned with spray-swept lights the grief 

Of many storms upon her, 
Old Gloucester adls, and Boston bends 

Her triple crown in honor. 

While Strawberry Bank cries o'er her reefs, 

Wiscasset hears the voicing. 
Great towns and hamlets up and down 

The windy coast rejoicing. 

Nor these alone. But they whose sires 

Left fair Arcadia weeping, 
Remembering warm and welcoming hearths, 

Your festival are keeping. 

Songs, too, far over summer seas. 
Should swell your birthdaj' pjean. 

From children of the Cape de Verde, 
From isles of the ^Egean. 

For where gaunt famine stalked in rear 

Of battles's fell disorder. 
Where stout hearts sank as harvests failed 

And fire swept through the border. 

Wide have you spread your generous hand, 
With fond repeated action, 



88 



And dropped, as showers drop out of heaven, 
Your gracious benefaction. 

Sweet Ipswicli, throned upon your rock ; 

And at your feet your river, 
Uncounted birthdays be your share 

Forever and forever ! 

Forever may your civic heart 
Thrill, as in days long vanished, 

Responsive to the anguis^hed cry 
Of houseless and of banished. 

And never may the hearts you bless 

To grateful impulse deaden, 
But stir as blossoming clover fields 

To rain and sunshine redden. 

Forever may your river flow 

In long, bewildering reaches. 
To lose itself in foaming bars 

And surfs on silvery beaches. 

And dusk in reds and purples, bright 

In green and golden shadows. 
Fresh as the morning, ever keep 

Unchanged your sea-born meadows. 

Still may the flashing sea-gulls wheel 

And scream beyond Bar Island, 
As when they saw the Mayflower hang 

Beneath old Winthrop's Highland. 

And ever on 3'our Hundreds may 
The herds browse, and the swallows 

Pursue your sails that mount and dip 
To seek your dim sea hollows. 



C9 



O blessed may be the storied lands 

The Hills of Beulah dearer, 
But to our hearts your sylvan charm 

Must still be something nearer. 

And still the singer of the song 

Finds no enchantment rarer, 
And Ipswich shores so fair, that Heaven 

Itself can scarce be fairer ! 

The seventh toast was responded to by Hon. George B. 
Loring, U. S. Commissioner of Agriculture. He paid a 
deserving compliment to the orator of the day, and, speaking 
of the present industries of Ipswich, said the town had 158 
farms which produced products, including 4800 tons of hay, to 
the amount of $98,450. 

"Our public school system," was responded to by Mr. R. 
H. Manning, who is as well able to speak on the subject as 
any one living. The ninth toast was to have been responded 
to by Commander J^illings ; but that gentleman having left, 
the band played "Marching through Georgia." At this 
point, Mr. Sayward proposed a sentiment to the orator of the 
day, to which Mr. Knnball responded. The tenth toast was 
"The member of Congress from the seventh district,"' to wliieh 
Hon. E. F. Stone responded, saying: 

"Mr. President: — This is an interesting day for Ipswich, 
and every one of her guests at this time feels, as the Governor 
said tliat he did, a desire to And sometiiing in his pedigree 
by which he can claim some right to be here. One of my 
lineal ancestors, William Moody, was of the party who, in 1634, 
resided in Ipswich, and the next year went with Rev. Mr. Parker 
to establish a plantation at Newbury ; this connects me with this 



40 



old town to some extent, and makes me feel as if I were not 
altogether a stranger in this plaee. At this late hour I will but 
hint a thought or two, suggested by the scenes and services 
of tins day. 

It was said by your orator that Ipswich was one of the 
characteristic New P^nglaud towns, and this is true. It was 
composed of men selected for special service. It is also an 
integral part of the 7th Congressional District, a district which 
I have the honor to represent, a district distinguished in an 
especial sense by the ideas and habits and institutions which we 
associate with INew England. De Toqueville, in his work on 
Democracy, asserts that New England ideas were gradually 
extended to the neighboring states, and from them to those more 
distant, till thej' finally permeated and colored the whole Union. 
This is true, and of all the districts which compose the entire 
Union, there is not one that more fully illustrates the truth of 
this statement than the Seventh District of Massachusetts. 
The Union was formed to meet the exigences of marine 
commerce, and there was not a district in any of the states 
that more clearly felt and understood the needs of that commerce 
than this old district composed of the sea-coast towns on the 
eastern coast of Massachusetts — not a district that did more 
to shape the policy of the government finally established. 
Mr. President, this country is to take the lead in the history 
of the future. The main current of civilization will be hereafter 
by the valley of the Mississippi, and the great rivers of the 
west, extending from sea to sea. Whether it will l)e faithful to 
the ideas which have ruled tlie policy of this republic in the past, 
it is impossible to tell. But a great future is before us. When 
John Winthrop and his brave associates landed on the desolate 
coast they had their dreams of conquest and ambition, but not 
one of that brave band, in the wildest fliglit of his imagination, 
anticipated that, in less than three centuries, they should behold 
on this western continent great nationality, equal in power and 



41 



resources to the leading nations of the old world : and yet such 
is our condition to-day — the work of the Puritan's heart and the 
Puritan's brain. And of all the congressional districts not one 
is in more thorough sympathy with the ideas and principles 
which have shaped our political history than the Seventh Massa- 
chusetts District, of which Ipswich is one of the principal 
towns." 

In response to the toast "Our absent Fellow-townsmen," 
Col. Luther Caldwell, of Elmira, New York, spoke substantial!}' 
as follows : 

"Mr. President and friends: — Some time since I received 
an uivitation from the chairman of your committee, to respond, 
in a "few words" to tlie sentiment just announced. The 
lengthening shadows wain nie that this day's events will soon 
terminate, and I nnist exercise the gift of brevity. I will not 
say that Ipswich is a good place to emigrate from, when we 
we all know it is so desirable a place to live and grow, and 
be born in. "Young man. go west," said Horace Greely : 
but Mr. Greely had never visited Ipswich, or he would have 
said " Young man, go to Ipswich." It should be remembered 
that our fathers who came to America, were obliged to land 
on the coast — the rich lands of the interior were closed to 
them. On all the Atlantic coast from jNIaine to Florida, there 
is no more pleasant or healthy place than Ipswich, nor one on 
the seashore line more fertile or containing more natural 
beauties or greater advantages. To those of us who have 
wandered away, these attractions of the town are ever present 
in mind wherever we go. To those of you who have 
remained and kept green the graves of our venerable sires 
and cultivated the ancestral farms. Pope's words are appropriate : 

•'Happy tln^ mail wliose wisli ami care 

A few paternal acres bound, 
Ci)iitent to br<';i»;lie his native air 

In his own jiroiuici. 



42 



Whose heris with oiilk, whose fields with breail, 

Whose flocks supply him with attire; 
Whose trees in summer jieU] him shade, 
In winter, fire." 

Mr. President, this has been a red-letter day indeed, for old 
Ipswich ; her sons have come from near and afar, and friendlj' 
greetings between those long absent and separated has been 
one of the marked features of this notable day. The town 
has been hardly able to hold all the thousands gathered within 
her fold to-day. The decorations of both public and private 
buildings have been general and in good taste. The grand 
old elms which ornament the streets on every side, stretching 
out their broad-armed branches over our heads, as if invoking 
countless blessings thereon, stand like 

"Sentinels to guard enchanted land." 
The summer foliage of the trees and herbage never looked 
fairer and fresher, and the beauty of the town in all its parts, 
draped, and in its holiday attire, makes the visit of your 
absent sons a luxury and joy, and an event long to be 
remembered with just pride. Also, especially to be com- 
mended was the soldierly bearing and military discipline of 
the veterans or "Grand Army" boys, whose appearance with 
full ranks of the Ipswich and Essex Posts, has been the 
proudest and the most honorable feature of all the incidents of 
this great and brilliant celebration. In closing these brief 
remarks, permit me in behalf of your absent sons, to thank and 
compliment you, Mr. President, the committee, and the dear old 
town, on the success of this anniversary of its incorporation." 

Rev. Dr. Rust, of Cincinnati, who was expected to respond 
at this point, declined so to do, because of the lateness of the 
hour. 

The band then played '' Home, Sweet Home," and Mr. 
Roland Cotton Smith then spoke for the -' Ladies of Ipswich." 
To " Ipswich in England," the following letter was read, and 



43 



the baud played '' God save the Queen : 

Ipswich, July 20, 1881. 

Dkar Sir:--1 regret it is uot in my power to be present at 
the two hundred and flftieth anniversary of the incorporation of 
the town of Ipswich, Massachusetts, as my mayorality duties 
entirely prevent my being absent for any long period during my 
year of office. I should have felt very proud to have returned 
thanks for old Ipswich amongst some of the descendants of those 
who emigrated from their native land in order tiiat they might 
have freedom to carry out their political and religious opinions 
which were denied them in England. Being descended in a 
direct line from Philip Henry, I can fully sympathize with your 
Puritan fathers, who endured persecution because they desired to 
carr}' out their own views, and admire their adherence to those 
glorious principles which actuated Cromwell, Hampton and that 
noble band who fought for their liberties rather than bend and be 
downtrodden by our Stuart kings. "Wishing that your 
enterprising town may increase and prosper, and ever l)e 
celebrated for its '' civil and religious liberty." 

Yours faithfully, John May, 

Mayor of Ipswich, England. 

John Heard, Esq., 

Of the committee of arrangements. 

To the last toast, " The survivors of the last celebration 
1834," Hon. S. H. Phillips responded, and the band played 
" Auld Lang Syne." 

She audience then separated. 



Among the letters of regret read were the following from 
Hon. James G. Blaine and John G. Whittier : — 

Ai:gusta, Maine, August 12th, 1884. 
Mr. Sayward. Chairman of the Committee of Invitation : 
Dear Sir : — It is with sincere I'egret that I fhul mvsclf 



44 



unable to be present at the Celebration of the 250th Anniversary 
of the Settlement of Ipswich. Personally, I have the most 
agreable associations with your town, and, by marriage, I 
have a right to sit at your board. My children inherit the 
blood of two families who were among the original colonists 
that pitched their tents at Ipswich. 

With such ample reason for deep interest in your town, I 
need not assure you of the great pleasure it would give me to 
join in your celebration if my engagements would permit me 
to leave Maine at this time. 

Very sincerelj^ 

James G. Blaine. 



Amesbuky, 8th month, 14, 1884. 
To the Committee of the Ipswich Celebration : 
Gentlemen : — I very much regret that I am not able to 
avail myself of your kind invitation to the Two Hundred and 
Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement of Ipswich — the ancient 
Agawam. There are few towns in New England of older date, 
or about which cluster more interesting historical and legendar^^ 
associations. Like your neighbor. Old Newbury, while it has 
sent its emigrants over the continent, it has retained its home 
reputation for honest manhood and worthy womanhood. Beau- 
tiful for situation on its fair river and pleasant hills overlooking 
bay and islands, the homesick eyes of its far-wandering 
children may well brighten with joy as they gaze once more on 
its familiar and fondly remembered scenery. 

Thanking 3^011 for the invitation to a celebration in which 
every son of Essex, whether present or absent, will have an 
interest, 

I am very truly your friend. 

John G. Whittier. 



45 



It was remarked by everybody that the celebration passed off in 
a most successful manner, without a break or draw, the only thing 
to mar the happiness of the occasion being the sad death of 
Mr. Horatio P. Dunnels. It is earnestly hoped that the 300th 
anniversary will be as successful. The committee having the 
affair in charge were Hon. C. A. Saj'ward, chairman, John 
Heard, P. E. Clarke, Hon. Frederic Willcomb, George E. 
Farley, Joseph Ross, George Coburn, D. F. Appleton, N. R. 
Farlev, Nathaniel Shatswell and Albert S. Brown. 




Meeting-house Hill, 1839. 



Old Homes of Ipswich. 



The '250tli anniversary c;ives a fresh interest to the 
ancient homes and lioinesteads of Ipswicli. 

John Winthrop, Jr., and his -apostolic number," anchored 
near the foot of East street, in 1033. Tliey cut staunch oak 
timbers for groundsills and rafters, pine trees for "rayles and 



48 



clayboardS:" built houses and dug wells ou the southern sides 
of their new homes. 

Although the first timbers were laid on East street, yet 
the heart of Old Ipswich is Meeting-house Green. No matter 
how long the outreached arm or how distant the straying foot, 
the old Green has been the centre and pulse. This arises 
from the fact that for years all public gatherings — religious, 
civil and military, — were held in the meeting-house or about it, 
and from generations of habit, the children naturally turn to 
the haunt of the fathers. 

Old time meeting-houses were not sacred buildings. They 
were not dedicated as churches have been, since the Revoht- 
tion. They were preaching places and town houses ; they 
were for prayers, votes or any general duty that needed to be 
done under a roof. Publishment of marriages, warrants, 
notices of any town interests, requests for prayer aud 
expressions of thanks, were each aud all proclaimed here on 
Sundays and Lecture days. Ministers in bands and gowns, 
judges in scarlet, and prisoners in cuffs and chains, people in 
Sunday best, or week-day clothes, entered now and again as 
the call happened to be. 

As earl}" as 1G34, the first meeting-house was built on the 
Green, aud Edmund Gardiner, who had the title of "Mr.", 
took care of it, and covenanted to keep it water tight as well 
as clean, and take his pay in summer wheat. There was a 
bell on this first house ; and the sound of it, caught up by 
the breath of summer or the blast of winter, was pleasant and 
homelike— as a bell has been to all generations since. In 1640, 
Ralph Varnura rang the bell and read marriage publishments on 
Lecture days. 



' iIH 




Nmnii :Mhi:tin(; Ilorsi:. I74i)-181«^, 



49 



III 1017, a second inet'tiiiy-liouse sui)pl:inte(l the first. It 
was sqiuiie, with :i turret in tiie centre, and windows with 
leaden sashes, inserted as suited convenience- A few j'eai's 
later, this house was enlarged, and the first bell was hung upon the 
scliool-house, and Mr. John Appleton, merchant, was im powered to 
buy a larger one in Lontlon. Fifty-three citizens paid for it, and 
tlie sul)scriptiou list u[i<)U the t(jwn-booi<s is one of the [ileasant 
relics of a lieneration gone forever into the past. TlieopliiUis 
Wilson had the care of this house. 

In l(Jt)t)-1700, the third house was erected, probably near 
on the site of the soldiers' monument. It was "banked up with 
stones and gravill " from tlie old fort on the green, indicating 
tJKit after more than sixty years of Indian strifes, the towns 
were settling into a sense of security, and had no longer 
need of garrison-house and fort. The pulpit of this house was 
"plact neer ye edge of ye great rock in ye meeting house about 
seventeen foot from ye wall." 

In 1749 was erected the spacious house which is now a 
distant memory to people fast passing life's meridian. It was 
called homely and ante-dated in 184G, when its history ended ; 
but, as tlie picture of it returns and memory sees the needle- 
like spire, high — to our child-thought — as the very heavens, and 
the inviting double doors, spanned by an arch as graceful as 
if drawn with nature's own eye ; and, within, the bobbined 
pew, the sounding-board— "a master-piece of ingenuity," as 
old people expressed it, we wonder why Parson Kimball said, 
(as some can distinctly remember, even to the very tone of his 
voice), "This house must be taken down; so all the young- 
people say, so most of the middle-aged say, so not a few of 



50 



the fathers and mothers say, and, last of all, to cap the climax, 
the pastor pronounces his hearty Amen !" It was illuminated 
at the tidings of the last peace with England ; Lafayette was 
welcomed in it by Nathaniel Lord, jr., Esq. ; the eloquent 
voice of Choate filled it ; and a thousand interests clustered 
there. 





Mrs. Anna (Stewart) Bakek. 
BouN 1776. 



Joseph Baker. 
1784-1346. 



The next house, in importance, to the meetinff-house, was 
the Ordinary or Inn. Robert Andrews, "drew beere" on the 
south side of the river in 163'), and Samuel Cole on High street, 



51 



in a house but recently torn down. ]>ut the fust tavern which 
seems to have found special place in records is the 8parke Inn 
of 1671. We hear first of Sparke as the tenant of Deputy 
Thomas Bishop, who lived on the Green. John Sparke was 
succeeded by Mr. Rogers, who had the "Sign of the Black 
Horse." Mr. Crompton followed Rogers. Next wc lind tlic 
name of •' Taverner Smith," who moved into Ipswich from Box- 
ford; and, later, '* Taverner Treadwell," who is (piaintly 
described in the diary of President John Adams, as Sparke. 
Rogers, and Crompton are alluded to in the Judge Sewall Diary. 
This old Treadwell Inn i«s now known as the residence of the 
late Joseph Baker and wife, and of his sister Mary, who, in her 
young womanhood, taught children their "A B C's" and young 
misses how to write and work sami)lers. 

To the south of the old Treadwell Tavern is the Rogers' 
house, in which lived Mary Crompton Rogers, whose portrait, 
painted at 18, is still preserved liy the Bowkers, of Salem - her 
descendants. A chest of Rogers' papers was in possession of 
Mary's children -and where is it now? 

Adjoining this Rogers' house was that of the 'Tlon'ble and 
CoUo : John Appleton," whose wife was Klizalieth, daughter of 
President John Rogers, and whose grand- daughter was the 
wife of Reverend John Walley, first i)astor of the South 
Church. In this house, ( now owned by Mrs. Wilhelmina 
Wildes,) were secreted Gofte and Walley, as tradition says, and 
a closet-like room, with a fire-place in it is conjectured to have 
been their retreat. Old coins were recently found in this house 
bearing date of 1657. Here lived Post-master Daniel Noyes, 




^^, 



Abraham Hammatt. 



1854. 



of worthy memory ; and here died Abraliam Hammatt, a man 
long to be remembered for his antiquarian researches. 

On the site of the Cobinn house, on the Green, lived 
Anthony Potter, whose wife was fined for wearinp: a silk bonnet 
to meeting : and where Edward P. Kimball, P>sq., lives, once 
stood the iiouse of Robert Dutch, who was scalped at Bloody 
Brook, and, strangely enough, lived to come home and recover 
health and life. 

In this very vicinity first dwelt John Cogswell, until he 
moved his family to Chebacco, and lived as became a man of his 
wealth. One of his descendants erected the large colonial 
mansion in Chebacco, winch af^ructs at once the notice of a 
passer-by. 



63 




C'oGswEi-L Man?>ion. Chekacco. 



54 



The Seminary on the opposite side of the Green supplanted 
the house built by Mr. Henry Sewail, (father of Judge Sewall,) 
when he wintered in Agawam, and was sold by him to Deputy 
Governor Symonds. And next above was a little and ancient 
house, whose latest occupant was Elizabeth Brown, known to 
the last generation as Betty B. She made black silk bobbin lace 
for a living. On cold Sundays she carried a tin foot-stove to 
church, filled with turf coals. She buried in the hot ashes of its 
deep dish, each Lord's day, two goodly potatoes. While Mr. 
Frisbie preached his long, wintry sermon, the potatoes con- 
tentedly baked ; the coals kept her feet warm ; and, during the 
hour's uoouiug, she refreshed herself with hot potatoes, and was 
all ready for the afternoon exercises. 




Denison Arms. 

Major-General Denison lived on the Green "near ye 
pound," which was a stone-wall enclosure near the barn of the 
late Rev. D. T. Kimball. The whipping-post and pillory were 
here, and their sites are marked b}^ elms planted l)y tiie late 



55 



Aarou Cogswell, wIkj duo- up, and, for aught we kuow, preserved 
the decaying stumps of these instrunieuts of torture. 

On the way from the Green to High street, we pass the 
Dodge house, built in 1640, and sold in 1(;48 by Thomas Manning 
to Robert Whitinau. It was owned later by Dr. John Brigham, 
wlio was born in Boston, in 1045, and died in Ipswich, in 1721. 
'•Very skillful," the town record says, "being commonly attended 
with great success." He gave a silver cup, in dying, to the 
cliurch. Ilis house passed later into the possession of the 
Dodges, who came from AVenham. For fifty years this 
family were a part of the sinew, strength and character of all 
dei)Hrtments of the public life of the town ; and Colonel Abram, 
one of the sons, was a prominent friend of AV^ashmgton ; and, 
wlien the President passed through Ipswich, Colonel Nathaniel 
Wade lifted up Reliekah, the little daughter of Colonel Abram, 
and told Washington it was the only child of his late friexd, 
(\)louel Dodge. Washington immediately took her in his arms 
and kissed her in memory of her father. Rel)ekah became the 
wife of .Toseph Waite in 1802. 

On East street is the ancient Fawne house of 1G;}.j— l)etter 
known in town histoid and records as the Norton and Cobbett 
house. It was Iniilt by John Fawne, in 1G35, one year after 
the incorporation of the town. He was a man of wealth, and 
had the title of 'Mr." Plain men were simply designated as 
"Goodman." Mr. Fawne sold the house in 1G3G to Thomas 
Firman, a gi'andson of the famous Nathaniel Ward, author of 
"The .Simple Col)bler of Agawaui," a'Kl a son of the first 
doctor of Ipswich. Mr. Firman sold it to the Rev. John Norton, 
one of the prominent ministers of early New England. He was 



56 



called from Ipswich to i^oston in 105(3, and the controversy 
between the towns concerning liis removal was long and heated, 
and not altogether according to St. Paul's charity, which "is 
not easily provoked." Mary Norton, widow of the Rev. 
John, donated the land ia Boston on wliic:\ the Old South 
stands. Rev. Thomas Cobhett, the successor of Mr. Norton 




Norton and Cobbett House, 1635. 

in Ipswich, took ])ossessiou of the house in 165G, and died in 
it nearly fifty years later, and Cotton Mather wrote his epitaph. 
Afterwards it passed into the hands of the Wainwrights. 
During the Revolution it was occupied by Jeremiah Staniford? 
a prominent man of his generation. His wife is remembered 
as one who gave her family stockings to some bare-legged 



67 



voluntoors, marching luiniedly to Charlestown from Exeter, as 
the tidings of Bunker Hill went sweeping over the laud. 

Still later, it was partly owned by Richard Sutton, grand- 
father of the late General William T. Sutton, of Peahody. 
It is said the old General tooic much interest in this old home 
of his ancestor and its histor}-. 

The joint owner of this i)lace with Mr. Sutton was Abraham 
Caldwell— grandfather of Mr. Abraham Caldwell, an octogena- 
rian, now residing on High street. Mr. Caldwell's books, which 
were left in this house at his death, included Latin and Greek 
volumes and works of theology which would have whet the 
swords of the clergy of that day. 

Mr. Foster Russell was born in this house eighty 3'ears ago, 
and now owns half of it. The other half was owned for many 
years by the late Mr. Daniel L. Hodgkins, and is now in 
possession of Mr. Daniel S. Burn ham, of Boston. The very 
quaint and, probably, the original front door of this old ministe- 
rial home is preserved by Mrs. Hodgkins. In this house Governor 
Endicott and Doctor Increase Mather were once entertained, and, 
also, old Mugg, a famous and dreaded sagamore of Maine, when 
on his way to Boston. 

At the west of this old dwelling lived, in a regal way. 

Colonel Francis Wainwright, whose name comes down from 

generation to generation, as the man who died on his bridal 

week, while his wedding clothes were lying upon the marriage 

bed. Judge Sewall relates what has been tradition in Ipswich 

for generations : 

Aiig't 8, 1711. Col. Francis Wainwright dies at his own 
house at Ipswich. Left Salem for his last, July 2;j, the day 
before his first-appointed Wedding-day. which Appointment was 



58 



remov'd to the last of July. He was Sick at Ipswich on the 
Loid's-day, July 29, and died on the Fiiday following, at 10 ni ; 
his Bride being with him. 'Tis the most compleat and surprising 
Disapointmeut that I have been acquainted with. Wedding 
Cloaths, to a Neck-cloth and Night-Cap. laid ready in the Bride- 
Chamber with the Bride's Attire: Great Provision made for 
^Entertainment : Guests, several come from Boston, and euter- 
tain'd at Mr. Hirst's : but no Bridegroom, no Wedding. He 
was laid in a new Toml) of his making lately, and his dead wife 
taken out of another, and laid with Iiim, Tuesday, Augt. 7. 
Bearers, John Apleton, esqr. Col. floi)n Higginsou, esqr ; Daniel 
Epes esqr. Stephen Sewall esqr; Lt Col. Savage, and Mr. 



Daniel Rogers. 
Mourner. 



Mis. Piccty ' Hurst, the Bride, was principal 




Here lies entombed the 

Ijody of 

Col. Francis Wainwki<ht, EEsq., 

Who died August ye 3, 1711. ^Etatis 47, 

& his vertuous Consort. Mrs. Sarah 

WAiNWRKiUT, who died March ye IG, 

1709, ^tatis 38, 

With three of their youngest 

children, John, Francis, & John 

Who died iii their infancy. 



59 



The old High street grave-yard contains the old tomb of this 
prominent man, and the nearly oblitjrated ins(;i'ii)tion and arms 
are as on the previous page. 

Still farther to the west, on High street, is the house built 
by Rev. Nathaniel Rogers in 1728, a fnie specimen of the 
spacious style of that day. It is now remembered as the home 
of Nathaniel Lord, Jr., so long a register of probate. Next to 
him lived Rogers' son, in the house now the residence of Mrs. 
Bradbury. Forty years ago, this was the home of the 
naturalist, Oakes, whose name is one of the treasures of all New 
England. 

Still farther above on tiiis street lived names which will 
be remembered as long as the old town has a history : William 
Bartholomew, the clerk in whose writing are the earliest town 
records ; Robert Lord, ancestor of that famous Ipswich 
family which has in all generations been staunch and stiong, 
and from whom desceuded Judge Otis P. Lord. 

Governor Bradstreet, and Aune, his wife, who was the 
first poetess of New England, lived for eight years in Ipswich 
and their home was on the third house lot east of the High 
street graveyard, (governor Dudley, father of Anne Brad- 
street, lived on the second lot. 

In this immediate neighborhood still stands the ancient 
John Caldwell house, which, since 1654 — two hundred and 
thirty years — has been held by his descendants. It was built 
by Richard Betts and sold l)y him to Cornelius Waldo, an 
ancestor of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The mother of the 
Caldwells was Sarah Dillinglmm, who was left an orphan 
at two years of age, in 1030. Hei- mother gave, by will, a 



60 



silver bowl to Mistriss Saltoustall, and a silver porringer to 
Mistriss Appleton, and to the husbands of these ladies "ffyve 
rounds" a piece. 




John Caldwell House. 1G54. 
It is an interesting fact that Colonel Nathaniel Shatswell, 
chief marshal of the 2r>0tli anniversary, resides in the very 
homestead on High street granted to his ancestor, John Shats- 




Shatswkll House. Hicai Street, 
well, in 1C>;U — the year of the incorj)oration of the town. 



61 



During the entire histor}' of Ipswich, a Shatswell has oecni)ied 
the spot. 

Near the High street school was, formerl}', a hill, which 
is now completely levelled ; it had the singular name of 




Simon Smith's House. 171)0. 

''Gander." At the foot of this hill lived Simon Smith, in a 
liouse whicli was, doulttless, a fair specimen of the style of" 
small houses of that day. 



South Part of the Town. 

The south part of the town has many i)oiuts of iuterest. 
('ai)tain Baker's house, huilt in l(>yy, was once the home of 
John Proctor, father of Josei)h, who went from Ipswich to 
Salem, and was condemned as a witch, chiefly because he 
thought a good whipping would be a sensible remedy for the 
bewitched girls of that dreadful delusion. 

Opposite the town hall is the early home of Joseph Greene 
Cogswell, (first lil)rarian of tlie New York Aslor Lil)rary) and 



62 



of his sister, Elizabeth, whose love for Joseph was very like 
Elizabeth Whittier's love for her poet brother. 




Miss Eunice Jones. 1793-1825. 

In the next house but one, i^ow owned by William Reddy, 
was entertained the Rev. George Whitefield in 1740, when he 
was in Ipswich and preached on the great rock, since called 
"Whitefield's Pulpit." This house was erected by William 
Jones in 1728, and remained in the name 150^ years. 

Opposite the Jones house stood the Knowlton house, built 
in 1092 and taken down about 1862. 

John Knowlton, the builder, died September 11, 1720, 
leaving a widow, Sarah, and two sons, Abraham and Isaac. 
Isaac married Mary Dear, October 12, 1728, and had possession 



6C 



of the house. He died in 17rj<S,'*'and gave it to his widow, 
Mai7 (Dear). She sold it to Robert Choate, wliom she after- 
wams married. Mr. Choate gave it to his daughter, Mrs. 




John Knowlton's House. 1G91-2. 

Elizabeth (Choate) Farley, wife of General Michael Farle}'. 
It was owned later by Aaron Wallis. In 1820 it was bought 
b}' Amos Jones, blaeksmith, and remained in his family till 
18G0. Two Years later it was demolished. 




^:^.C 



Dk. Wallis' House. 
A few rods to the south lived Doctor Samuel Wallis, who 
died, greatly lamented, in 1728, in his early manhood. The 



64 



house was probably built in 1692, by Mr. Nathaniel Rust, the 

man who made the mourning gloves for Mr. Cobbett's funeral. 

Where the residence of Mr. John Heard now stands, the 




Colonel Nathaniel \Yade, died 182G. 

first Kinsman built his house ; and the Zenas Cushing mansion 
once sheltered the immortal AVashington. In the Wade house, 
a few rods to the south, ( built in 1728), hved the trusted 
friend and counsellor of Washington and Lafayette — Colonel 
Nathaniel Wade. So tenderly was he regarded and remembered 
by Lafayette, that when the two met in Ipswich in 1824, after 
years of separation, they embraced each other and wept. 

At the eastern end of the Wade home is the site of the 
Nathaniel Ward house, where lived the author of "The Simple 
Cobbler of Agawara." 

And just across the meadow, on the Essex road, is the 



65 



earliest shelter of John Winthrop, jr., the founder of the town, 
and the place where fell the first great shadow of his N'onng 







Thk Winthkop House. 1038. 

life, when his wife, scarcely more than a bride, was carrioil 
out for burial. 




Castle Hili. Farm House, built by 
John Winthrop, Jr. 

Five years later Mr. Winthi'op received as a grant from 
the town the Castle Hill farm, on which he built the liouse 
which stood more than two centuries and sheltered many widely 
known names. 

Natlianiel Rogers, the first of the long line of ministers and 
father of a college president, lived where Mrs. Trask's home 

LOfC. 



66 



is ; and a little to the south still stands another old Norton 
house, where the South church of Ipswich was organized. 




South Parish Meeting House. 1747-1838. 
On the Green in this part of the town stood the old tneeting 
house, where preached John Walley and Joseph Dana, and 




The Walley-Dana House. 
where Daniel Fitz was ordained : and a stone's throw from 



67 



the spot still stands the homo of l)oth Walley aiul Dana. 

A brick in the chimney of this South eliufch manse, bore 
the date of IGSIG. 

A piofiU^ of Dr. Dana is in possession of Mrs. Elizabeth 
Dana Tappan of Derry. N. II. 




Rev. JosErn Dana, D. D. 

On Turkey shore, (more modernly called Prospect street,) 
were names now known the wide world over. Here lived 
Thomas Emerson, the ancestor of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and 
his liouse-lot can be unmistakably traced. The Riuge family 
were his neighbors, aiKT the3% inter- marrying with the New 



68 



Hampshire Wentworths, had royal governors for their children. 
And on this " shore " lived also William Hubbard, the early 




Emerson Tombstone. 

historian, whose lips oftimes dropped pearls, if his path was 
uoi always strewn with flowers. The cellar lines of his house 
are yet traceable in Mr. Grant's field. 



69 



Thomas and Susanna Howard canio from Aylosford, in tlic 
Hercules, with five children. He settled in Jjjswicii, and his 
son, William, married Tabitha Kinsman, and lived in what is 
known as the Dawson house. At his death the housf 
descended to his sons, John and Samuel — and these brothers 
opened, in 1709, the drive way, which has been calli'd for 
generations " Love Lam*." 




The grave of William Howard was marked with a stt)ne 
which yet remains. 

About 17(10. the Howards sold the house to Samuel 



70 










Old Dawson House, Home of William Howard. 



71 



Ringc — and later it became tlie Iiome of Capt. Elienezer 
Caldwell— tlie yraiulfatlier of Mrs. James (J. lilaino. 




Daniel Hovky's House. 1G68. 



At the northerly end of Turkey shore is the ancient Hove}' 
house erected by Daniel, the emigrant, in IGGS. His wife 
was a sister of Thomas Andrews, the grammar school-master 
who succeeded Ezekiel Cheever 




The Foster— now the Daniel 8. 
BuRNHAM House. 

The house and schoolroom combined of the fainous 
2;rammar schoolmaster, Ezekiel Cheever, whom Boston stole 



72 



away, stood on the very site of Thomas Tilton's barn. It was 
by no means a spacious house, but for more than 150 years it 
was the place where Ipswich boys were prepared to go to 
Cambridge. The house was a gift to the school by its 
founder, Robert Paine, whose name should be always written 
in letters of pure gold. 

On the opposite side of the river from the Howard house, 
is an ancient and interesting residence. It was built, 




Col.OXKL JOSKI'II HolXiK'NS. DiED 1S21). 

witli another which once stood at its side, by KolxMt 
WaUis, and sold bv him to Roger Preston, whose wife's name 



73 



was Martha. In 16.')7, Preston sold both houses to Rei^inald 
Foster, who gave them, as tradition has it, as marriage 
settlements to two of his sons in 1058. 

Martha Preston's chest, which she brought from England 
filled with her wedding outfit, is now in possession (;f John 
PatOh, Esq., one of her descendants. It is made of oak, cedar, 
and el)ony, and is a very curious and valuable relic of early 
house-keeping in New England. 




Saitonstall. 

Very near the railroad station is the old home of Richard 
Saltonstall — a man who filled up the measure of liis life with 
deeds and words which liave kept his name familiar to :dl 
generations since the settlement of the town. 



74 



And this old house has additional interest as the home of 
Col. Joseph Ilodgkins, who is yet held in local memory as one 
of the patriots of Bunker Hill, and succeeding battles of the 
Revolution. 

Directly opposite the Eastern railroad station is the house 
lot of the first Appleton of Ipswich, and in the house built 
thereon, on the evening of August 27, 1()87, the famous 
Ipswich men, John Wise, William Goodhue, John Andrews, 
Robert Kinsman, Thomas French, John and Samuel Ap- 
pleton, settled the question that Andros, the king-appointed 
governor, had no right to tax the people unless the Assembly 
consented. No spot in all the town is of deeper patriotic 
interest than the Appleton house-lot. 

A score of other houses could be counted, all of local 
interest. No wonder old Ipswich loves to count over her 
jewels. They were the grace of her youth and are the crown 
uf her old age. 



Citizens of Ipswich 






We (Ipsire to call your attention to 
the fad that rve carry the lanjed stock 
and the qreatest variety of Men's, 
Boy's and Children's fine and medium 
Cloth iiifi, and Gent's Furnishing Goods 
of any dealer east of Boston. Being 
nuiunfacturers of our ou-n clothing, it 
enables us to keep constantly before the 
jmblir, oil the latest novelties and 
designs at 2mces that defy competition. 




6Q 
) — ( 

O 

I — I 
tJd 

O 




NAUMKEAG CLOTHING COMPANY, 

I A. GALLUP, Man R, 1771 179 Essex St., Salem. 



€t:tALFRED HALEIi^ 



'^ 



sr^. 



DEALER IN 



Dailf aM feiilli Pasers 



ALL THE LEADING 



OF THE DAY, AND THE POPULAR LIBRARIES, 
INCLUDING THE 

Seaside, Munro, and Liovell. 



STATIONERY IN GREAT VARIETY, BIRPHDAY CARDS, 
REWARDS OF MERIT, FANCY ARTICLES, 
SUCH AS AUTOGRAPH ' AND PHOTO- 
GRAPH ALBUMS, PICTURE 
FRAMES, POCKET 
BOOKS, ETC. 



-:^ 



FGRtlGN ARD DOMESTIC FRUITS 



IN THEIR SEASON 



No, '6 Central Street, IPSWICH, 



William S, Russell 



DEALER IN 



Dl^Y ftl^D FfiW GooDgf 



Ladies' and Misses' Hosiery, 



•■>T 

^ CORSETS 



:i^««5 





h 



GLOVES 






DOMESTICS, TRIMMINGS, SMALL 
WAKES, ETC. 



LADIES' AND IM I S S E S ' 



CLOAKS aTd NEWMARKETS 



5 AND 7 Market St„ 



Ipswich, 



HENRY W. THURSTON, 



^^^M^ 



^1 



101, W'ilk^MIHClrT'OH StJRMEITJ. 



^jUPHOLSTERY DePARTMENT,^v^^jDeCORATIVE AND PAINTING -^^ 

221 Essex Stkket, A . --^±i^^-^ EMPORIUM, 



C'ornor of Washington, 



# 



# 17 Washington Street, 

The Old Obrtewer Offioe.igg 

Supervised by ®I®^ Supervised by 

G E o R G p: D O M I c a n . wprof. c. f. fillebrowx. 



We Invite an Inspection of our Goods, 



APOTHECARY. 



tEBIN R. SMITHS 



A FULL AND SELECT ASSORTMENT 
OF THE FIN FIST 

Drugs and Chemicals 

GERMAN AND AMERICAN HERBS, 

Toilet Articles |i Fancy Goods 

SOAPS, PERFUMERIES, STATIONERY, 
SCHOOL SUPPLIES, CHAMOLS SKINS, 
SPONGES. SURGICAL INSTRU- 
MENTS, TRUSSES, ETC. 

-€ Also, a Full Line of Artists' Colors and Materials. B- 



^* "^ SODA f^*=^^^ 



I N T HE SEASON 



FINE IMPORTED i^ND DOMESTIC CIGARS 



No, 7 Caldwell's Block, IPSWICH. 




]{$][ LO^D, 



ESTABLISHED IN 1825. 



3-5^.MtfklG 



Flour, Fine Groceries, 

Hardware, Crockery, 



^ CHOICE TEAS ^ SPICES *-PURE COFFEES-* 



GLASS W/aRE, CANNED GOODS, 

Pft^IlQII]® TOOLg, w eOODS, 

WOODEN WARE, ETC. 



^ 70 High Street, Ipswich, '^^i: 



JOHN M. DUNNELS, 



MAMKA< TL'KKIJ «)K AND DKAI.KK IN 



Ranges and Stoves 



FURNACES, 



Stove and Kitchen Furnishings 



.lOHlUNG OK ALL KTNDS. 



^ ■ ; =^:O^O.. i [ ^^^~ 



Wait's Building, Ipswich. 



'% 






DEAI.KU IN 






FINE GROCERIES 



.^■^^■, 



CHOICE TEAS AND COFFEES, 



FLOUR OF ALLGRADES 



gftI]I]ED;!;GOODS^i^ftI]D;!;gPIgES, 

HARDWARE AND CROCKERY, 

(5MgS fiI]D WOODEI] Wftl^E, 
Farmino- Tools, Grass Seeds, &c., 



60 South Main St., Ipswich. 



15S0 




1555 



WILLIAM WILLCOMB, 

niMiiirii'liinr mill ICi'tull Di'iili-r In nil kiiiilsuf 

eOI]PEeTIOI]E!(Y, ISE gf(Etn], 

FRUIT, NUTS. CAKE, FANCY GOODS, 

YANKEE NOTIONS, GAMES, TOYS. ETC.. 
IPSWICH, MASS, 



mPMr- 



JUSTICE OF THE PEACE PT)R THE 
COMMONWEALTH, 

DKAI.EI! IN 



'J 



mmm -^mmm 



W' 



m 



AND BROKER IN 



BONDS, AND OTHER SECURriTES, 
Opposite Water St., BOSTON. 



SPECIAL ATTENTION PAID TO LEASING, SALE, 

PURCHASE, AND CARE OF REAL ESTATE. 

ALSO, the EXAMINATION of TITLES, 

DEEDS, LEASES, ETC. 



Money Loaned on Personal Property, 



t^l; Mortgages Negotiated ;^^^ 



Pension CUiiiitiH, irliethcr oritjiiial or conU'stcd, rcirefiilly 
iiivesfiyated. 



fji^ 



WWm 



VjU 












?« 



M. ^ S^. MrA'^/, My^/^:>/. 



>5— 4" — 0*'^ 



//^;/ ///^//uv/,i, ////// y/V///y //// w' /^'/^ y^ 



^SMre//u m^el J/^^mrl 



4 



ii(^^:^ 



te^ 



.J 



Ip 












r 



A LARGE EXPEDIENCE EXABLE^ US 
TO OFFER FIXE GOODS IX GREAT 
VARIETY. AXD TO MAIXTAIX OUR 
LONG - STAXDIXG REPUTATIOX FOR 
FIRS T - CLASS WORK. 



RS, M, J, Sanderson 



MARKET STREET. IPSWICH. 



-*->>$^^Jj'?^|J^'(fe$<- ^ 



t 




i 



1 



^iil 









LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 






014 078 652 4 






''^i'L^SaiiiilkMfiiMliSiMiafiHil 




